Cal-Nev-Ari, NV

Lake Mead North Drive, NV

More driving followed (surprise), highlighted by the relevant-to-this-story-but-nowhere-else town of Cal-Nev-Ari, Nevada. To me, it looked like a little orchard of billboards, neatly planted in rows along the road to Las Vegas. I avoided Las Vegas by taking the very scenic (but still too many boat-towing Tahoes and Rams) Lake Mead North Shore Drive. The sun set as I drove along here, and I was feeling ready to stop for the night. I drove on past the hideous border town of Mesquite, NV, into the Virgin River Canyon, back in extreme northwest Arizona, on I-15. The campground at Cedar Pockets had closed at 9pm, and the gate was locked shut, so I set up camp in a perfectly pleasant spot up the hill and off the road in the Wilderness land. I read a bit of Nature’s Metropolis (a Chicago historical geography by William Cronon) and hit the hay.

Lake Mead (background), NV